It's foxy former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, 71, a dominant figure in Louisiana politics for more than 20 years, who's in the limelight - spinning the news and dazzling reporters as the taciturn DeBartolo, 51, fades into the background.

The likely indictment of the owner of one of the premier National Football League franchises, the San Francisco 49ers, is riveting news even in Louisiana's rambunctious political culture, where the indictment of politicians is commonplace.

The investigation, which is expected to produce at least six indictments by Friday, has been grinding on for more than a year and may have made Louisiana the most wiretapped state in the union. It has centered on Edwards, who was governor when Louisiana legalized riverboat gambling in 1991.

But it's the $383,500 in cash that DeBartolo reportedly gave Edwards that seems to fascinate Justice Department attorneys and the FBI most. The government has subjected every single bill to microscopic analysis and has fought tooth and nail to keep physical possession of it.

A consulting fee&lt;

The unflappable Edwards insists that the money is legal income - a consulting fee - and couldn't possibly be construed as a bribe, because he held no public office when he got it.

That argument won him an acquittal in 1986, when he was indicted in connection with the award of several hospital construction contracts to cronies. Edwards was between gubernatorial terms at the time, and he used his status as a private citizen as his defense.

Edwards, who left office in 1996, is known as "Cousin Eddie" to his supporters and "Fast Eddie" to detractors. As a Democratic governor, he pursued a progressive social and educational agenda in the tradition of Huey and Earl Long, his predecessors in the statehouse. Edwards served four terms, longer than any other Louisiana governor.

Rural and African American voters in Louisiana regard Edwards with particular affection, despite his well-publicized penchant for high-stakes gambling, frequent brushes with the law and reputation as a skirt chaser. (He recently married his 32-year-old girlfriend, Candy Picou.)

"Tolerance for corruption'&lt;

Edwards' enduring popularity is the despair of good government types like New Orleans attorney C. B. Forgotston, the state's leading anti-gambling advocate.

"In Louisiana we don't have corrupt government. What we have is a tolerance for corruption that you all don't have," he said.

Handsome and roguishly charming, the silver-haired Edwards is a French-speaking half-Cajun from rural Avoyelles Parish in south central Louisiana. He is a consummate spin doctor - the opposite of DeBartolo, who appears ill at ease and often gruff in public and who has kept a low profile since the indictment news broke.

Edwards said last week that he's always accepted cash for services and professed astonishment that prosecutors and reporters would think the practice unusual, even when the cash totals $383,500 in crisp new bills in a deal involving a riverboat gambling license.

He said he developed a preference for dealing in cash when he set up his first law practice in the small town of Crowley.

Checks too public&lt;

"You write a check and they go through the bank and the tellers talk about it in the beauty parlor .... First thing you know, your business is being discussed in the street," he said in an interview with the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Shreveport Times reporter John Hill, who has covered the statehouse in Baton Rouge for two decades and is planning a biography of Edwards, with whom he lunches regularly, said Edwards' worst failing is unflinching loyalty to friends and family.

The recipients of target letters from the grand jury all have close ties to Edwards. They include: his son, Stephen, whose law practice includes several gaming clients; Lake Charles casino owner Ricky Shelter, Stephen's best friend; Edwards' former administrative assistant Andrew Martin; and the former governor's old friend Robert Guidry, a casino owner who narrowly escaped losing his license in 1994 because of alleged Mafia ties.

"Monkey Business'&lt;

Among Edwards' cronies is William Broadhurst, a New Orleans attorney acquitted recently of skimming money from riverboat construction contracts.

Broadhurst is an abiding footnote in American political history, because he is the man who chartered the yacht

"Monkey Business," for a 1987 trip into the Gulf of Mexico with his friend Sen. Gary Hart, then a candidate for president. When a photograph of Hart with Donna Rice sitting on his lap was published, his presidential bid was finished.

Broadhurst's attorney, John Martzell of New Orleans, is also DeBartolo's attorney.

The Edwards-DeBartolo connection goes back three decades. Edward DeBartolo Sr. and Edwards were good friends and hunting companions. The DeBartolo family became involved in riverboat casinos by way of the family's Louisiana Downs racetrack in Bossier City.

$1,000 to $85 million&lt;

A story last week in the Baton Rouge Advocate by investigative reporter Greg Garland disclosed that the DeBartolo family parlayed a $1,000 investment in riverboat gambling into $85million in just four years.

In 1992, Florida-based Casino America made Louisiana Downs a 50 percent partner in its Bossier City casino and 25 percent partner in its Lake Charles Casino for $1,000. Besides putting up the $1,000, the DeBartolo group agreed to "use its best efforts to secure the necessary governmental and other approvals, permits and licenses" to get the riverboat casino up and running.

The deal was struck by the senior DeBartolo, creator of the family's business empire, which includes shopping malls and other commercial property, in addition to racetracks. In 1996, the DeBartolo group sold its interest to Casino America for $85million.

Casino gambling was legalized in Louisiana in 1991, when Edwards was governor, and the regulatory laws the new industry are barely in place. For the year ending June 30, 1996, Louisiana's riverboat casinos reported adjusted gross revenues of $1.2billion.

Gaming Board weak&lt;

After four years of fractionalized enforcement and oversight authority, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board was created in 1996. It is generally regarded as weak when it comes to enforcement.

Louisiana's straight-arrow Republican Gov. Michael Foster has announced that any member of the new board who becomes entangled in the current investigation of Edwards and his business associates will be fired.

The criminal case is believed to involve activities surrounding the awarding of Louisiana's 15th and last riverboat gambling license to DeBartolo - who then relinquished it because he did not want to provide all the records sought by a federal grand jury.

Just what crime he and Edwards will be charged with is unknown, and prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in New Orleans aren't talking. Edwards' lead attorney, Michael Fawer, said he suspects that the government will employ the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a catch-all for crimes involving conspiracies.&lt;